Restricting public participation under the RMA as the Resource Legislation Bill proposes will limit the ability of individuals and organisations to speak out for nature and protect areas such as the Denniston Plateau from coal mining and limit the ability of councils to consider the information submissions provide

RMA changes restrict public’s right to have a say

Restricting public participation under the RMA as the Resource Legislation Bill proposes will limit the ability of individuals and organisations to speak out for nature and protect areas such as the Denniston Plateau from coal mining and limit the ability of councils to consider the information submissions provide

The National Government’s Resource Legislation Bill has been described as making the most fundamental changes to the RMA since it was passed in 1991. It’s a complicated and technical bill which makes 40 changes to six different Acts, including the RMA.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the original architect of the RMA has identified, “at least three significant and dangerous trends running through the Bill”[1]. They include greater Ministerial control and centralised decision making that over-rides planning processes by local councils, limits opportunities for New Zealanders to participate in decisions, and puts an emphasis on the speed of, rather than the quality of, decision making.

The Bill has attracted considerable criticism from a range of submitters on these themes. Many submitters presenting to select committee this week have put in a lot of work to analyse the Bill, to make sense of the changes and explain its impacts.

Their comments and submissions should help MPs amend the Bill and make better law. Just like with the RMA – enabling the public to comment on council plans and policy and resource consent applications helps inform the decision makers and leads to better outcomes. Yet the Resource Legislation Bill will further restrict the ability of citizens to have their say, just as National’s previous RMA changes have done.

The Bill provides for a “streamlined” fast-track plan making process where only ”affected parties” and iwi are notified and able to submit. It narrows the matters submitters can comment on in resource consent applications, it effectively requires submitters to provide expert technical information and it allows councils to strike out citizen submissions.

ECO’s environmental economist Cath Wallace raised these issues at the select committee saying, “we are hacked off with the current emphasis in public policy on extractive interests and the lack of attention to other aspects of our social and cultural life, and to the ecological systems which keep the whole economy going.

“There is a marginalisation of rights of the populace to express their values and have these taken into account in RMA decision making in the Bill.”

The Environmental Defence Society said, “the Ministerial discretion provided for by the Bill is excessive and the reduction in public participation unjustified. The changes allow the politicisation of RMA processes and compromise the democratic separation of powers. The focus on quick decision-making will compromise good decision-making and good environmental outcomes.”

The restrictions on notifying consent applications for comment are likely to make RMA processes more, not less complex. Auckland Council dealt with 19,230 resource consents in 2014-15, around a third of all resource consents in New Zealand. It says the Bill’s changes to notification will increase the council’s processing workload, create complexity, add time and cost, and risk more objections and legal challenges.

The Ministry for the Environment’s own figures show that very few resource consent applications are notified for public comment (only 3% of all resource consents, 2% of subdivision consents and 1% of land use consents).[2] Yet the Government thinks the priority should be to further reduce this. The Dunedin City Council said the changes, especially limiting the scope of submissions are a “disproportionate response to the small number of applications that are notified.”

The Bill is a charter to property developers in its permissive approach to subdivision. It is shutting out the public’s right to have a say so that subdivisions can proceed faster. Changes aimed at fixing Auckland’s housing crisis will have the effect of making the public notification process more complex. They will also restrict New Zealanders’ ability to have a say on new irrigation takes, discharges, and marine farms and other developments that affect the natural assets we hold in common – the sea, the air, rivers and other waterways.

We all want effective environmental law. The thrust of the Resource Legislation Bill throttles local democracy by increasing the power of the Minister and reducing public involvement in plan-making and on resource consents. It restricts the public’s ability to speak out for nature and what people value in their communities.

[1] Palmer, Sir Geoffrey (12 April 2016) “The Resource Legislation Amendment Bill, the Productivity Commissioner Report and the Future of Planning for the Environment in New Zealand,” Keynote Address to the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Planning Institute.

[2] Ministry for the Environment Local Aut6hority Statistics for 2012/13

3 Comments Posted

This is only a taste of what is in the pipeline.
Utter arrogance, but our problem is the media is controlled and outrage is suppressed.
Kiwis will have to get a lot more angry and less divided to be effective in countering this governance by the “elite” for the “elite”using politicians and at present the Nact’s leader who is a well healed parasite in the pocket of overseas interests.
State asset sales. privatisation of prisons, environmental disaster with fresh water and marine, TPPA. TISA around the corner but already Nact is represented in talks, individuals bank deposited made available to bail out banks, Ministers up to their necks in dodgy deals, moves to privatise social services, amalgamate councils with no reputable evidence to support such moves and denying community will……..etc

Yet we are letting thsi happen.

They can do what they like obviously as long as they manage the stupid Kiwi.

This is just money boys and lawyers creating a fat lifestyle out of the bewildered taxpayer! How much is the bill now??? Environmental law could be underpinned by ONE LAW– FIRST MINIMISE HARM! That means harm to people and the environment! These restrants are already WELL KNOWN by SCIENTISTS and SOCIAL STUDIES! As in DO THE JOB PROPERLY FOOL!!! This is a job for PROPER SCIENCE and these boundaries are ALREADY KNOWN for ooooopse MORE than 1000 yrs ! Its sad to note that with all the fine words and WOW how much has this cost again that our environment is STILL in SERIOUS DECLINE! Actually d Human is in for a SERIOUS WAKE UP CALL from the BIOSHERE in the NEXT 100 yrs!!!

As with all the actions of the John Key government it is about giving power to the exploiters and those that want to make a quick buck out of selling assets. The more they get the commons into some sort of ownership structure the more money they can make, without actually doing anything.

Unfortunately the commons that is not being manipulated is struggling to cope with the process already in action, to the point we could loose the basis of our survival infrastructure. The slower process of full discussion allows the safe growth of an economy by carefully considering the overall impacts to the community and life support systems around. Maybe bankers are so artificially connected they don’t see these links.

In this time of climate change and the awareness of water and air quality as being severely under threat there is no justification for weakening scrutiny. The community that produces and makes an income from a healthy infrastructure have nothing to gain. The slowing down of investment in damaging systems has no negative impact for society, only for the investors who are out of touch, or to those money dealers who have less turnover for there unproductive activity.

The government has no justification to to change the RMA at present. The conservative 3% of foreign property purchase , adding in the 10% of transactions unanallised from the previous year and the unaccounted trusts etc.,, is close to the numbers that we could temporarily stop to take away this demand for speed. If we see a negative impact to the community, or we see a need to employ people when the Christchurch rebuild is over, we can open the doors again, and we can better analyse the impacts in the mean time.